


Are we ready now?

by roqueamadi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Divorced Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29897421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roqueamadi/pseuds/roqueamadi
Summary: A few months after the events of The Cursed Child, Draco has been trying to manage his newly resurfaced feelings for Potter - mostly by entirely avoiding the man. But he didn't expect to find him crying in a restaurant bathroom, ring suspiciously absent from his left hand.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

Inside the Ministry of Magic was a bar. In the mornings it served coffees and fast breakfasts, and in the evenings it served food quite late. It was intended for overworked Ministry employees, but the food was surprisingly good, and Draco hated eating at home alone. Also, there weren’t too many wizarding establishments that would serve him. 

Draco came here fairly often during the school term when Scorpius was away. Tonight was a Saturday, so it was quiet. Most Ministry workers weren't in on weekends, and anyone who had a life would be out somewhere more lively, like Diagon alley.

So Draco was very surprised when he used the men's after his meal and found, leaning over the sink, Harry Potter.

Draco would recognise the man anywhere, instantly, even from just a partial view of his back. It made him draw to a halt, his breath catching in his throat. It always did.

Potter's glasses were sitting on the bench as he scrubbed his face with water, though he straightened when he heard the door swing closed. Draco knew his eyesight was shit enough that he probably couldn't make Draco out in the mirror.

“Potter,” he said, by way of announcing himself, and it came out more venomous than he intended, but the other man’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

“Malfoy,” he replied, but his voice sounded unusually thick. Draco had been distracted enough by the annoyingly appealing three-piece suit and the infuriatingly attractive ruffled, thick hair, that he didn’t until now notice that Potter’s face and eyes were… blotchy. He closed the distance to the sink next to him in two strides.

“What is it?” he asked urgently. “Has something happened to Albus?” His heart leapt into his throat as he asked, knowing that if that were the case, his own son would be equally in danger.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Potter said, wiping his face with his hand; his  _ left  _ hand. Draco’s eyes narrowed and he looked over the benchtops in case Harry had just removed the ring while he was washing, which he already knew would demonstrate a level of care far beyond Potter’s uncivilised ways.

“You and Ginny have separated?” he asked bluntly. He knew there were probably more diplomatic ways to say it, but he'd never been good with subtlety.

Potter nodded, and, to Draco's horror, his eyes filled with fresh tears, and his expression crumpled, and Draco supposed his paternal instincts took over because before he knew what was happening, his arms were around Potter, and the man was sobbing into his shoulder.

Draco caught a glimpse of themselves in the mirror, his own face over Potter’s shoulder showing a rather terrified, wide-eyed expression, and it caused his already churning stomach to flip completely over. He rubbed the man's back in what he hoped was a soothing way, thoughts flying through his head. What had happened? How long had this been going on? Did the children know? Was either Harry or Ginny in the wrong, or was it a mutual thing?  _ Did the press know _ ? 

Draco heard voices outside the bathroom and his mind quickly followed that last train of thought through. Any rumours of  _ Harry Potter _ crying around the halls of the Ministry would inevitably lead to press attention and, ultimately, more unwelcome attention affecting his own son, who was only just starting to fit in a bit better after last year’s events involving the time turners. He had to get Potter out of here.

“Come on, Potter.” Draco maneuvered Potter’s body to prop him against the sink and reached for some paper towel, dabbing his face while he tugged his wand out of its holder, calling on a light cooling charm to remove some of the angry red splotches marring the man’s handsome features. He reached for the glasses on the bench and gently slid them on, then quickly straightened the tie and lapels. Potter was watching him the whole time.

“Come on,” Draco repeated. “You need to get out of here. Have you paid already?”

Potter nodded.

“Then just follow me.”

They exited the bathroom just before two other men entered and Draco breathed a sigh of relief. They crossed the foyer towards the floos. Luckily at this time of night the place was almost deserted.

“Do you know where you're going?” He asked in a low voice. Potter just shook his head morosely, and Draco sighed in frustration. “Come with me, then. You know the address.” Potter had visited several times (the townhouse, not the manor—he hadn’t been back there in years), dropping off or picking up Albus.

Draco had no idea what he would do once he had Potter alone in his house and the thought made his stomach flip over again. He pushed the feeling aside and took the floo.

He arrived only a moment before Potter, quickly getting out of the way. He resisted rolling his eyes when, despite the state he was in, Potter still managed to look like some kind of superhero in the way he slid smoothly to his feet out of the floo, still athletic and coordinated despite the stiffness that Draco knew must affect his joints the same as it did Draco, at their age.

He directed Potter to the leather couches and went off to make tea, thoughts racing through his head. Harry Potter was here in his house. Alone. Upset.  _ Single _ —Draco pushed that thought away. Irrelevant. The fascination and envy he'd felt for Potter as a child had dulled with age but since the events of the time turner last year things had... Changed. Standing next to Potter as he witnessed his parents’ deaths hadn't been something Draco could just  _ forget _ . He also couldn’t ignore—though he'd tried—the fact that Potter had grown, disgustingly, more and more handsome with age, and his position in the Ministry also didn't help. Draco had a bit of a thing for attractive men in positions of power. Basically, it was a lost cause, and Draco had only survived the past few months by limiting his interactions with the man wherever possible, keeping drop-off and pick-up exchanges short and refusing the various offers of dinners/birthday parties/Christmas/New Years/workweek coffees which now came relentlessly from the assorted Weasleys and Potter himself. But that had meant he'd had no idea this… situation was brewing. During the events of last year, he had noted that Ginny and Harry’s relationship was a bit…  _ odd…  _ but he had never expected this. They were the golden couple, after all.

The tea was ready and he'd stalled long enough. He asked himself what a regular platonic male friend would do in this situation, but found he didn't know. He carried the tea in, set it on a small table, and took a tentative seat next to Potter on the couch.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked, reverting once again to more paternal territory.

Potter took the tea. 

“It's alright, Draco, you don't have to...  _ do _ this. I'll go in a minute.”

“I wouldn't have invited you here if I didn't want you here,” Draco said, more stiffly than he intended. He waved vaguely at Potter's empty ring hand. “How recent is then, then?”

Potter slumped back further into the couch. “A few weeks ago, but it’s been brewing for years.”

“ _ Years _ ?” Draco repeated. “Haven't you been happily married practically since the battle of Hogwarts?”

Harry ran a hand through his hair, swallowing thickly. “After… Ginny and I took a break, early on. It wasn't working out. I started to explore some things... I realised that I wasn’t, erm—” he glanced nervously at Draco, and Draco’s heart suddenly doubled its rate as his instincts told him what Potter was about to say and he shoved it down, knowing it must be wrong, but then Potter proved him right. “...I realised I wasn’t straight.”

Draco might have seen spots in his vision as his heart just about exploded out of his throat, but he thought he maintained his composure externally.

“Then it turned out she was pregnant, with James,” Potter barrelled on. “And I wasn’t about to leave a child without his parents.”

“Of course,” Draco managed, hoping his voice didn’t sound too choked.

“It’s not a  _ disaster  _ or anything,” Potter added. “I mean, we managed it twice more at least— _ obviously _ . We just didn’t…” he sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

A wave of feeling overcame Draco and he couldn’t help himself. The words spilled out. “Potter, you don't have to explain it to me, it’s obvious. You never had a family so you were desperate for one. I know some of what that feels like. And something I suspected before, but I think you’ve now confirmed… Ginny is an excellent mother; to your children and… and also to you.”

“I don't see Ginny as my  _ mother _ ,” Harry exclaimed, blanching.

“Don't you?” Draco prompted gently. “I thought it was odd, last year… She seemed to mother you just as much as your children.”

Potter sunk back, embarrassed. “I... had never thought of it that way.”

“And you wanted to be part of the Weasley family. I can understand that.”

Potter sighed, sitting silently for a long minute while he sipped his tea. “There's a guy she works with,” he said eventually. “Matt. I mean, I like him too, he's great. And we have a kind of unspoken agreement... It doesn't affect the children, they don't know.”

“I see,” Draco nodded.

Potter cocked his head at him. “You’re being far more understanding than I expected.”

Draco thought his throat might explode if he didn’t tell Potter the truth, right now. It seemed like it would be appropriate to do so, finally. He just hoped he could maintain his composure.

“I…” he swallowed. “Astoria and I were close, and we loved each other, but we weren’t romantic. We came to an agreement before we married. It got our parents off our backs. And we were happy, even if we rarely were intimate. She said she just didn’t enjoy sex, no matter who it was with. Asexual is the word. I thought I was the same.” Draco took a breath. He couldn’t look at Potter, though he knew the other man had gone very still. “But that wasn’t it,” he pushed on. “My father would have drowned me in the lake if he knew,” he said, huffing a forced laugh. “And some of those Death Eater ceremonies, well... They certainly made sure I didn't want to think about it. But then, Scorpius... He's so free, he doesn't have all the hangups I have, thank goodness. His experience of realising and accepting who he is, has been... It’s a revelation. All I do is sit there and listen to him, these days. He knows all these things it's taken me forty years to learn—about his heart, his identity, about not caring what people think.” He knew he hadn’t explained himself particularly well. “I’m sorry, I’ve never spoken about this to anyone, and I shouldn’t be going on about myself, not when you—”

“Draco,” Potter interrupted. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know your thoughts, Potter,” Draco shot back, feeling suddenly defensive.

“Please don’t call me that,” the man replied, looking upset.

“Harry,” Draco said quickly, not wanting to send him back to the crying stage, annoyed with the waiver in his voice.

“You’re gay,” Harry said, gently, clarifying, holding Draco’s gaze steadily.

Draco’s throat had stopped working, but he managed to incline his head.

“Well,” was all Harry managed in reaction to that, sitting in stunned silence for several long seconds. “Perhaps I ought to hand back my badge, because for all my investigative training I never picked up on that.”

“Well, I’ve only recently realised myself.”

Harry nodded slowly. “It’s an exciting time,” he said, with a slightly pained expression. “Exciting and… terrifying. Let me… let me know if you want to talk.”

Draco managed a smirk as a deflection. “It’s  _ you  _ who’s meant to be talking right now.”

“Yes,” Harry sighed. “I suppose you should know… We’ll be telling the children at Easter, so you can expect Scorpius to know about it about five seconds later. I’ll have finished moving out by then.”

“Where are you moving?”

“Back to Grimmauld Place.” At Draco’s confused expression, Harry clarified. “It was the Black’s. Sirius left it to me.”

“Ah.”

Their conversation faltered. Draco wasn’t sure what to say next, still feeling slightly dizzy about all that had transpired. Harry placed his empty tea cup back in its saucer.

“I should be getting back. There’s a lot of organising to do, and I’m on a big case at the moment.” Harry hauled himself to his feet, with effort, and Draco followed, wishing he could think of a reason to ask him to stay.

Harry stepped back over to the fireplace, reaching for a fistful of floo powder. “Thank you for… everything. I appreciate it.”

“Would you like to have dinner?” Draco burst out, the first thing that came to his head. At Harry’s slightly cocked head, he clarified, “Later this week maybe? Thursday?” Thursday was the first day of the week he could think of, and he immediately regretted it—a Thursday night dinner sounded formal, impersonal, not like a date at all.

“Sure.” Harry replied before he’d even finished listening to his wild train of thought. “Salerio’s?”

Draco had to think for a second before the word filtered through his dense brain. The name of the bar in the Ministry where they’d met tonight. 

“Yes. I’ll meet you there at…”

“Seven,” Harry supplied. “I’m lucky to finish work before six, these days.”

“Thursday at seven,” Draco repeated, nodding, hardly able to believe he’d achieved this much in the way of conversation, at this stage.

“Great. See you then,” Harry nodded, back to his usual composed, confident self, and disappeared through the floo. And Draco stood there frozen for several minutes longer, attempting to process everything that had happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first foray into this ship. I only just saw The Cursed Child this week, and completely loved it (Australian Harry and Draco being hot af certainly helped) - so I hope I got the characterisation down okay. Not sure if this is a one-shot or if I'll write more. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

Draco didn’t make a booking at Salerio’s. It wasn’t necessary, on a Thursday night, and he thought it would make the whole thing feel more serious than it was. More like a date, which he knew it wasn’t. It was just two… friends? Acquaintances? Catching up. And he didn’t particularly dress up—not by his standards, anyway. (Draco always made sure he dressed well). 

But despite all of these attempts at informality, Draco still felt nervous as he took the floo to the Ministry at precisely seven PM. 

Arriving in the foyer, he took a moment to brush himself off before he looked across towards the restaurant. He felt a slight, unwelcome, stab of disappointment when he didn’t see anyone in a three-piece suit and cute ruffled hair and lightning scar waiting for him. Instead, a purple paper airplane bumped into his chest. He paused, watching it, unsure if it had somehow got confused, because interdepartmental memos were usually only sent between Ministry workers. But it was quite insistent in stabbing ineffectually against his jacket, so he caught it and carefully opened it.

_ Draco, _

_ Apologies - running late. Meet me in my office? _

_ Harry _

Draco repressed a sigh. On the one hand, the idea of visiting Harry in his office gave him a slight thrill (which he tried to ignore); on the other hand, he wasn’t looking forward to walking through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and past several Aurors, potentially still at their desks at this time of the evening, who he knew for a fact hated his guts.

He steeled himself. What did it matter what they thought? He started down the foyer to the elevators.

The department was quiet when he entered. Most of the lights were off, and he couldn’t see many heads at the desks in the open plan area. He turned down the hall where the individual offices were situated, towards the one at the end which he knew housed the department head’s office. As he got closer, he could see the door was open, and he could hear voices; angry voices. He slowed to a halt, unsure if he ought to let them know he was here or wait and pretend not to hear. Then he recognised the voice; it was Harry’s wife, Ginny.

“...how you can be surprised about this, honestly.”

“Ginny—”

“This has been coming for years. It’s ridiculous we’ve waited this long.”

“But I just— If we could just talk about it—”

“I’m done talking about it, Harry. We’ve talked it to death. It’s time to move on.” A frustrated sigh. “Don’t— don’t do that. Just sign the papers and owl them back, okay?”

The office next to Harry’s was open. As soon as Draco heard footsteps, he dived sideways, hiding inside the doorframe and watching as Ginny hurried past. He remained frozen, unsure if he ought to continue on or just turn around and leave. Then, faintly, he heard something like a shuddering breath, and he knew Harry Potter was crying on the other side of the wall. And he didn’t know why, but he couldn’t just leave him there like that.

Draco stepped out of the dark office and covered the final distance to Harry’s door. The office was impressive, though messy (not surprising). He only gave himself a brief second to take it in, before he focussed on Harry, sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.

Draco rapped a knuckle on the open door politely. “Po— Harry.”

Harry jolted and sat back, knocking his glasses askew as he rubbed at his face. “Draco,” he said, trying to force a neutral expression.

“We really must stop meeting like this,” Draco said with a small smile, stepping in and closing the door behind him. He stepped halfway across the room, trying to push his nerves aside. Harry looked at a complete loss. “I must admit I heard some of that.”

“You did?”

Draco nodded, then followed Harry’s gaze down to a set of papers on the desk in front of him.

“She’s asked for a divorce?”

Harry nodded. “It’s not that I didn’t know it was coming. Just, having it actually happen is different…” his voice started to break down, and he turned to the side, hiding his face in his hands again. “I’m sorry, I just need a moment…”

Draco didn’t know why he so severely hated seeing Harry unhappy. In the past, he would have paid for the privilege. However, to be fair, these days, he disliked seeing anyone in pain. He could barely even read the news. Age, grief, experience and parenthood had combined to turn him incredibly soft.

He walked around the side of the desk, dropped to one knee in front of Harry, gently prised his hands from his face, and pulled him into a hug. It amused him vaguely that the man didn’t even seem to know how to cry properly, holding it all in under quiet gasps and gritted teeth, muscles shaking with the effort.

“You know, if you hold it all in like that, it will just keep coming back,” he said mildly into Harry’s hair. “Let it out.”

“I can’t,” Harry gasped, barely able to speak over the tension.

“You can,” Draco said firmly.

“We need to go to dinner,” Harry gritted out.

“Screw dinner. I’ll cook something for you later. I’ve got nowhere to be.”

Harry gave a few more oxygen-deprived gasps before his resistance finally fell away and he cried properly, wetting Draco’s shoulder and neck, creasing the back of his robes where he gripped hard. It broke Draco’s heart, and at the same time made him feel bemused; he knew they would have looked a ridiculous pair, and hearing Harry properly cry sent nervous jolts through him, as though his body was trying to scream at him to find and stop the danger, to  _ protect _ .

After a while Harry let Draco go and sat back in his chair, and, disgustingly, his face still looked handsome even when he was crying. Draco accio’d a box of tissues and got to his feet, slightly stiff after kneeling on one knee for several minutes. He sat in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk, waiting patiently while Harry blew his nose and scrubbed at his face.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” the ridiculous man said, his voice thick with a blocked nose.

“Because you’re sad, man, and clearly emotionally constipated,” Draco said, exasperated. “Honestly, you’ve been through enough, I would have thought you’d be more self-aware by now.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m no good at all this. Probably why I’m no good at being a father either.”

“Not that again,” Draco said sharply. “Albus even bragged about your Quidditch cups the other day, Scorpius told me. You’ve done fine.”

Harry sighed. “So I should just sign these, then?”

Draco raised a hand. “You’re already separated, you’ve moved out, you’re telling the children soon. Why wouldn’t you sign?”

“Because…” Harry’s voice became slightly unstable again and he paused long enough to gather himself. “Because the next step is telling everyone else, and it’s proof how much of a... failure I am.”

“Oh yes, head of Magical Law Enforcement, multiple-time saviour of wizarding kind, such a  _ failure, _ ” Draco said sarcastically. “Get over yourself, Potter, despite all those things, the world doesn’t  _ actually  _ revolve around you, you know.”

Harry gave a lopsided smile. “Thanks, Draco,” he said, amused, and reached for his quill, the smile fading.

Draco watched, stiffly, as he signed the various pages of parchment. He hadn’t exactly intended Harry to do it right then and there, he at least ought to read it in detail first, but he didn’t want to stop him now he’d started.

Harry sealed the papers and got laboriously to his feet, reaching for his coat. “I’ll drop these off to the owlery on our way.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh—is it too late for Salerio’s, now?”

“Come back to my place,” Draco said, sticking to the plan he’d proposed earlier. “I’ll make you something.”

Harry hesitated halfway through pulling his coat on, looking over at Draco in a way that was assessing, analysing—Draco wasn’t sure what for, but he endured the look with an innocent expression until Harry finally nodded.

Soon after, Harry Potter was once again in Draco’s house. Sitting at the small kitchen table, to be precise, a glass of wine in hand, his coat and his outer jacket draped over a chair, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing forearms that Draco had to immediately ban himself from looking at. Draco tried to appear composed as he chopped carrots and refused Harry’s offer of help for the third time.

“You enjoy cooking?” Harry asked.

Draco nodded. “I enjoy potions, and cooking is rather similar. I don’t like cooking for one, however.”

“Ah.”

“You do as well, I understand?” he seemed to recall Ginny making a snarky comment about Harry doing all the cooking, during the events of last year.

“No,” Harry replied. “I tried, but I’m terrible at it. Just as bad as I am at potions, if you remember,” he added with a smirk.

“Why didn’t you just order in?” Draco asked. “You could have afforded it, surely.”

Harry shrugged. “I always wanted us to have nice family dinners. Molly Weasley always used to do it so effortlessly,” he said, wistful. “Well, I suppose not effortless, rather with a lot of skill. Skill neither Ginny nor I ever had.”

He seemed like he might say more, so Draco waited, but he didn’t elaborate. 

“I like cooking for Albus when he’s home, but he never wants to sit for long—he’s always so busy,” Draco said. 

Harry nodded wistfully. “What do you do with yourself these days, anyway?” he asked after a moment.

“I’ve been working on my doctorate in potions,” Draco said, amused by Harry’s surprised expression. “I’ve been doing it part-time for years, and I had to take a break when Astoria got really sick. Now I’m hoping to finish it off, finally.”

“Wow, that’s impressive. You must be even better than Snape ever was, by now.”

Draco shook his head. “Never. I’m interested in theory. In practice, I’m mediocre.”

Harry laughed at that. The relatively safe conversation topics of their children and their jobs kept them going through the rest of Draco’s food preparation and two more glasses of wine each. Draco dug out some dip and crackers, conscious he ought to have lined the man’s stomach a bit better before plying him with alcohol, but Harry was already looking pleasantly drunk and relaxed.

“I don’t know if I can go to work tomorrow,” Harry groaned, pushing his hands through his hair and making it even more adorably ruffled.

“Don’t, then,” Draco said, passing him a glass of water to accompany the crackers and wine. “What are they going to do, fire you?”

“No, I have to,” Harry said. “There’s too much work.”

“It might surprise you to learn that you’re in fact not a superhero,” Draco said gently. “People can’t work all the time.”

Harry sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. But lately I just… I can’t get anything done, I can’t focus, and I’m tired all the time. It never happens to me, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“It’s called burnout,” Draco said dryly. “Caused by ongoing, long-term stress. You should take some time off. You’re going through a divorce, for Merlin’s sake.”

Harry mumbled something noncommittal and Draco went back to check on dinner. When he served it up, Harry practically inhaled it, in between exclamations about how good it was. He ate two full servings, and then finally hid a huge yawn behind his hand. “Ugh, sorry. I’m exhausted. I’d better go before I’m too tired to even floo.” He got to his feet and swayed slightly.

“It looks to me like you’re already there,” Draco said, smiling slightly at him. His stomach flipped over as the next words left his mouth. “Just stay in the guest room. It’s no trouble.”

“Oh— I couldn’t—”

“Harry,” Draco said, “I’ve already admitted I don’t like being alone, and we both know you don’t either. What have you got to rush back to? Just stay. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”

“That is tempting…” Harry said, undecided.

Draco got to his feet. “Come through, I’ll show you.”

He knew the guest room looked inviting. He prided himself on presenting a welcoming and comfortable home, even if it wasn’t a manor. As soon as Draco turned the bedside lamp on and Harry looked over the comfortable bed, the pleasant drapes that Draco pulled closed, and the door through to the little ensuite bathroom, his shoulders slumped and he relented.

“Okay. Thanks, Draco.”

“Don’t mention it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I wrote more. Let me know what you think!


End file.
